Once again, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Trump juiced low-propensity Latino turnout in Texas in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Latino Dems turned out in almost exactly the same numbers as before, except in 2024 where they were down by the same amounts as Dems were in the national electorate. Trump Pump, Biden Malaise.
The overall electorate shifted 6 points towards trump last year. Don’t tell yourself you’ve found the key to the puzzle in noticing that one or another subgroup shifted by 4-7 points. The whole fucking country shifted.
Yes and no. The number of anecdotal cases of Trump voters being personally hurt by his policies is dwarfed by the MAGA adherents who aren’t hurt and are pleased to see some version of Trump’s campaign promises be carried out.
Economic pain is the only thing that shifts large numbers of voters and causes them to reconsider their past votes and party loyalty. Sure Trump can (and probably will) do deep damage to the economy which results in a result like 2020 where the Democratic candidate seems like a safe choice to repair the damage and restore order.
But 4 years later, after the dust clears, voters will be listening again to the culture warriors and mouthpieces for Russian propaganda who have become really adept at stoking our nation’s anxieties and exploiting wedge issues. Democrats haven’t figured out how to keep the voters they get when the Republicans leave in disgrace (Bush after the 2008 financial crisis, Trump in 2020 after the brutal COVID year and his terrorist insurrection).
We’ll just lurch forward with each Republican administration ending in crisis and violence, only to be restored to power after a 2 or 4 year hiatus.
I don’t have the key to the puzzle. I’m pointing out that anyone who leans on “Demographics is Destiny” for Democratic success at the ballot box, or leans in in trendlines from past elections, is deluding themselves and everyone who reads that claptrap gets a sense of false hope.
It is. Without trump, the GOP has roughly 63-66 million presidential voters nationally. He juices the low-propensity dipshits who just want to see him smash shit up. Those people don’t give a shit about any other candidate.
That’s not to suggest that Dems can just lay back and reap the demographic rewards. Biden tried that, and the result was fucking trump all over again. But it’s not meaningless that Kamala Harris got more votes than any Republican presidential candidate ever except for Trump in 2024.
And who is fucking doing that? Who is out there preaching “Don’t do shit, it’ll all work out in the end because demographics has everything in the bag eventually”? Stop beating that strawman.
I agree with you here. I’ve heard a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about Harris’s loss (“backwards voters won’t vote for a woman!” “pivoting from Biden killed the Dem’s chances!”).
The fact is that she ran a fine campaign, handled the debate as well as anyone could have, and got a lot of votes. The problem was that many voters felt that the Biden Administration was tone deaf to their economic pain in the face of inflation and housing prices, and blamed the Democratic Party. And Trump’s ugly targeting of immigrants still carried a lot of weight.
All of the above suggests 2024 was more of a ‘last gasp’ rather than ‘GOP rising’. And the GOP knows it, which is why they are doubling-down on Trump’s tyranny. A party that has confidence that they can win free and fair elections doesn’t go full authoritarian like we see with Republicans.
Correct! The problem was not that the Democrats’ demographic base is somewhere in the range of 70 million. The problem was that trump’s base (not the GOP’s) is somewhere around the same level, and the low-propensity/low-information voters who determined the outcome had a bad case of Biden Malaise.
If you think electoral trends are irrelevant to any discussion of future electoral contests, I clearly cannot help you. Run free in that sui generis electoral field.
Yes. These voters were very receptive to Trump’s messaging.
The only Democratic politicians who seem to understand how to speak to voters in this new 21st century landscape are AOC, Pete Buttigieg, and (just lately) Gavin Newsom.
Just because average sea levels are rising doesn’t mean their won’t be low tides. The same happens with elections.
How we know things are turning blue in Texas is that the low tides today are higher than the low tides in the past (i.e. Romney performing better in Texas in 2012 than Trump did in 2024). Can’t say exactly when Texas will go blue for President, but we’re clearly one high tide performance away from that happening.
And once Texas becomes a battleground state, the GOP is in deep sh*t for Presidential elections. They know this, which is why they are going full authoritarian.
No, they mostly were not. What they were keenly attuned to was the shitty vibes, mostly economic but also governance under Sleepy Joe. Fundamentals swing presidential elections all the time.
Texas Republicans govern like they do because they have the demographics on their side. For now.
If you don’t play you don’t win. Know what is wrong in Texas and Florida. Democrats don’t play with any kind consistency. The Demographics is Destiny crowd are often too lazy to win. When only Republicans run for school board or the city council or state government, democrats for national office don’t have a chance. Winning takes work and a lot of people don’t want to work.
A few years ago there was a really great Democratic organizer in Georgia. Stacy Abrams organized so well that Georgia won two senate seats. Nothing since because she spent her time running for governor. and her organization fell apart. She should have continued organizing and training other democrats behind her. Georgia could turn blue with the correct level of effort by the democratic party. Until the national democrats get off their asses democrats in red states are not going to be successful.
Trump’s messaging was: “Sleepy Joe, who has one foot in the grave, is the reason you’ll never afford a house.” He spoke directly to those shitty vibes and made it part of his campaign.
Many voters were receptive to that. Especially those in their 20s and 30s.
This is why Trump keeps referring back to the price of eggs in 2024.
The irritating thing about all of these analyses is that they’re entirely rooted in past trajectories as if nothing transformative would happen between now and then.
Which I admit is a good baseline for understanding, but if the Democratic Party doesn’t have some plan to fundamentally alter its grotesque underperformance in rural areas, particularly now when Trump’s approval rating in rural areas is collapsing, just close up the country now.
This shouldn’t require brain genius level thinking. Democrats routinely lose large swaths of rural America by well over a 50 percent margin. As in, can’t even get about 25%. Just getting that number back into the realm of moderate blowout loss levels, like 60-40 splits, would be totally transformative to American politics at all levels of government at this point. In North Carolina alone, it would put at least 2-3 GOP-held House seats back in play and make the state reliably blue in statewide elections.
While doing everything they can to stop Trump, the playbook for 2026 should be to assume mindless, evil incompetence in everything on the part of the admin and then have a plan to capitalize on the failures. Playing this like just another election is loser think.
Trump had no coherent message, he just lied a lot. So much that he became a Rorschach inkblot for many voters who heard what they wanted and ignored the rest.
That’s Trumps true political superpower. It’s also why we’re hearing a lot of Trump voter regrets now as reality comes crashing down on them.
